Carey Nachenberg

VP, Fellow

Work at Symantec

Prior to working for Symantec, what was your first experience with its products?

I was in high school and had just deleted some key files on my PC-AT clone.  I had heard about Norton’s Unerase utility, but was skeptical.  How could a program actually bring files back from the dead?  Well, Unerase worked as promised.  I recovered my files and have been a Norton fan ever since.  You can imagine how excited I was when to be selected as an intern to work for Peter Norton Computing during my freshman year of college.

How long have you been working for Symantec and how did you join?

I did an internship with Peter Norton Computing in 1990.  I believe I was the first and only intern at the company.  Two years later, Symantec acquired the company and I was part of the Symantec family.  I joined the company full-time in 1995.

What gives you the most satisfaction in your job?

I love solving hard problems that can help our customers.  For example, during my career at Symantec I’ve had the opportunity to invent technology to detect complex muting viruses, design software to speed up antivirus fingerprint updates, and innovate new techniques to block high-speed network worms like Code Red.

What is your most memorable experience with Symantec?

My most memorable experience was my first business trip.  Symantec had just acquired Certus Corporation, a hot antivirus start-up. Certus had the fastest antivirus technology in the world, and their technology was going to be the basis for Symantec’s next-generation antivirus products.  I was still an intern and my manager sent me to Ohio to meet with Certus’ engineers.  This was both exciting and terrifying.  Fortunately, the Certus engineers were friendly because I don’t think I had ever been more nervous in my life.

What do you think has been the most innovative solution Symantec has provided its customers?

I think our antivirus and antispyware offerings are our most innovation solutions. While antivirus software might seem like a boring application to the typical user, I think few users realize how complex this technology actually is. Every time Norton AntiVirus scans a file or network packets, it has to search for hundreds of thousands of threats in just milliseconds! And many of these threats self-mutate or use complex encryption schemes to avoid detection. Once we detect a threat, we have to remove it from the system. Unfortunately, this is often even more difficult. Many threats actively fight back against security software, so we’re constantly evolving our software to keep users protected.

How do you and your team help to deliver on Symantec’s promise of Confidence in a connected world?

Our goal at Symantec Research Labs is to conduct advanced research in every technology area of the company.  I feel that our team is helping all Symantec customers by developing innovative technologies that will improve Symantec’s full line of products.

25 years of your life

What were you likely doing in April 1982 when Symantec was formed?

I was 11 years old and I had just received my first computer—a TI 99-4A!  My parents purchased it at the bargain basement price of $50 because it was a discontinued line.  Instead of a disk drive, the computer used a cassette recorder to load and save software.  This was also the year that I wrote my first computer program which would change my life.

What technological advancement has most changed your life since 1982?

Smart phones and portable music players have totally changed my life.  Today I’m always connected and information is always at my fingertips.  I never get bored as there’s always an interesting podcast or audiobook to listen to or a news article to read on my phone.

World event that has most positively impacted your life during the past 25 years?

An event that changed my life was the end of the Cultural Revolution. Because of this shift, China was able to open up and I have been able to experience other cultures and gain an education in various parts of the world. As a result, my life has changed in a very positive way.

Funniest thing that has happened to you during the past 25 years?

One quarter per year, I teach an undergraduate computer science course at UCLA in addition to my Symantec duties.  To motivate my students to participate, I often hand out candy and other prizes during class.  Well, during one class I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to answer a particular programming question, so I pointed to a student in the front row and asked him to answer it.  Lo and behold, the student answered the question perfectly, and I promptly rewarded him with a candy bar and asked what his name was.  For some reason, this caused a large fraction of the class to giggle uncontrollably, but I figured it was my witty instruction methods and interesting questions.  As it turned out, it was neither—the “student” I had just called on and rewarded was my class teaching assistant who just happened to attend class that day.  Boy, was I embarrassed.  I like to explain to people that my bad facial recognition skills were inherited from my parents.

On a more serious note, where do you want to be 25 years from now?

I would love to be doing exactly what I’m doing today—solving interesting problems that help customers, teaching and motivating our next generation of computer engineers, and rock climbing in the Santa Monica mountains (and perhaps in other more exciting locales as well).